


Ego

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [107]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Oneshot, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 18:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15273327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: He likes that she likes looking at him





	Ego

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on Tumblr on Feb 4th, 2018. I really did mean to post it here, too. But forgot

She looks at him and he feels it. That thing that had taken a while to click in his brain, the fact that he is, actually, an attractive man.

It was never something that he thought a lot about. He got teased by his friends about his ears when he was young and, later, his broken nose. It wasn’t until his first serious girlfriend that he really understood that “attractive” isn’t exclusive to “pretty”.

Frank never thought about that stuff anymore. He had been happy to discover that Maria’s genes were more than enough for them to produce beautiful children, and that his wife was satisfied with her husband’s looks. That was that on this subject. Nobody could say he was a man driven by his ego.

But now, after everything, after the mess that his life became, here she was.

Karen. Looking at him like that.

Karen, who could have been drawn by angels and birthed by a goddess, that turned heads wherever she went, with that hair and those eyes and legs and face and everything. She looks at him like she was about to unwrap a gift.

And, honestly, he doesn’t really know how to deal with that.

He had been too preoccupied with watching her when they first got together to notice that she was watching him right back. It was only weeks later, when he was tidying up her kitchen one night, wearing the sweatpants he liked to sleep on, shirtless, that he noticed her eyes on him, roaming around his back and chest.

Frank had put the plates away, taking his time, waiting to see if she would look away, and then turned to her, who stood there looking at him, not trying to hide it at all.

And Frank had felt it, that thing that made him want to puff his chest out.

“Don’t look at me like that, Miss Page”, he said, joking, and she tore her eyes from his torso to look at his face, a tiny smile curving her lips, a defiant brow arching.

“Or what?”

Placing the dish rag on its place, he turned back to her.

“I’m a dangerous man.”

“Is that so?”

“Mm-hmm”. He walked to her and she dropped the shoes she had taken off on the ground, lifting her hands to his sides, running them slowly, delicately. “Don’t you know what they call me?”

“Hmm.” She opened her mouth to his kiss, and he felt her palm on his abdomen, fingertips tracing dips and swells. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning that you should behave”, he said, his own fingers looking for the zipper of her skirt. “Or there will be consequences.”

She definitely did not behave. And there were consequences.

That was a fun night.

And she kept on doing it. Those blue eyes of hers, big and round and bright, roamed around different parts of him, and something inside him purred every single time.

She was good for his ego, Karen.

She walks behind him when he’s cooking them breakfast, arms around his torso and lips on his shoulder blades, a tender kiss full of warmth as she hugs him, but he feels her palms run from his chest to his navel before she pulls away to open the fridge.

Frank feels her fingers tracing the zipper of his hoodie while they wait for their coffee, the feather light scratch of her nails on the line of his jaw, to his chin and down his neck, and he has to look at her sometimes, to remind her that they’re in public, and she blinks, offers him a bright, but sheepish grin, leaning in to press a kiss on his lips before turning away.

More than once, he wakes up with her perched on top of him, hands roaming and eyes scanning, and he lets her touch him, watches her watch him, lifts a hand to her hair when she bends to kiss him, flips them over and does his own perusing, not missing how her leg rises to his hip, how she lets him touch her in any way he wants.

Such a strong will, his Karen. Such a strong woman, carved in marble, and here she is, every night, puty in his hands, letting him do as he pleases, letting him tell her what to do, accepting his guidance, moaning under him, sighing and crying out, a siren, soft and irresistible, luring him in, and he would drown willingly.

She squirms under his stare one day, standing behind the kitchen counter, looking at a bunch of papers while on the phone with her boss.

“Ellison, you know where I stand on this”, she says while Frank looks at her, because she looks so good, he loves seeing her like this, mind on her work, hair swept to the side, barefoot, and she looks back at him, feeling his stare, looking away and then back again. “You’re the editor, you could cut it, but I’d like to print it like that.”

Frank is leaning against the sink, letting his eyes and his mind wander, waiting patiently until she’s done with her conversation, knowing that it’s useless to rush her.

Doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the view.

“So what?” She goes on, and looks at him with the corner of her eyes, measuring, decoding him, figuring out he’s in a particular mood, cheeks gaining a flattering tint when he lifts his eyes from her legs to her own and sustains her stare. “It’s not my job to please him. He knew he was on the record when he said it, I’m not his babysitter.”

Frank keeps staring and she moves in place, turning away from him, closing a thick file on the counter, turning back around as if to confirm he was till there, he was still staring, still waiting.

“Fine. I have the file here, if you want it.” A second goes by and he guesses she has been put on hold, because she moves the phone away from her mouth and tells him, in a hushed tone, “Stop looking at me like that.”

“How am I looking at you?” He asks, just to see her blush a little further.

It amazes him that she still gets shy. They have been through some pretty crazy shit together, have done other amazing stuff after that first kiss almost a year ago, he has made her lose her voice and she has made him forget his own name once or twice, but she still blushes, she still squirms when he stares.

“Like I have no clothes o- hi”, she interrupts herself and he wants to laugh at her expression, as if her boss could somehow know that Frank is there and about to step closer to remove those shorts from her. “Yes, I have them right here.”

Phone between her ear and her shoulder, she turns to check the many files on the counter.

“The numbers check, but these are public records, I doubt they would be careless about it.”

She has her back to him, and Frank knows that when she’s in a roll like that, he’ll just have to sit and wait his turn. Still, it’s always fun to watch her squirm, so he walks to stand behind her, pressing his chest to her back, places one of his hands on the hem of her shorts, under her belly button, the other one pulling her face towards his, kissing her deeply for a moment that ends too soon.

“I’m gonna take a shower”, he informs in a whisper, holding her chin, placing one more kiss before walking away.

He’s showered and spreading shaving cream on his face when she walks in and hugs him from behind, mouth and nose hidden over his shoulder, but eyes staring at him through the mirror.

“I’m done with work”, she says against his skin, fingertips tracing the line of one of his scars.

“I’ll be just a minute here.”

“Ok”, she agrees, but doesn’t let go of him, and he runs the razor on his jaw under her attentive eyes.

Karen only relaxes her hold on him when he has to bend to rinse.

Her skin smells like her lavender body wash when he hugs her after drying his face, breathing her in, long strands of her hair between his fingers.

“You smell good”, she says, her own arms around him.

“So do you.”

He did have plans for her. Plans a tad more exciting than lying in bed in the dark, only the light from the street coming in from the window, resting on his back with his head on her lap while she drew nonsensical patterns on his arm, talking of nothing and everything until they fell asleep. Still, it’s not a bad way to end his day. Not at all.

.:.

Again, Frank is not a vain man. Even after constant attention, he will forget, sometimes, that she gets a kick out of looking at him.

Which makes it all the sweeter when she reminds him.

“Hey”, he says, walking into her bedroom after a busy week for the both of them. Friday was supposed to be about them.

“There you are”, she says, already in bed, showered and sleepy, that book she has been reading for forever sitting there by her side. “I was about to call you.”

“I stopped at Curtis’ on my way back. Grabbed a beer.”

“Hmm. How is he?”

“Good”, he answers, getting up from the chair on the corner of the room after taking his boots off, moving to remove his coat.

“Yeah?”, she presses on, laying there on her bed, one leg bent at the knee, head tumbled to the side so she could watch him, her own hand on her neck, knuckles running from her ear to her collarbone. “He still with that girlfriend?”

“Still on”, he goes on, standing in front of the bed, now, looking up and down her body, that notion clicking in his brain again.

She likes the sight of him. And fuck if that doesn’t please him.

“He says hello.”

She only smiles, her eyes running over him, and Frank can’t help but smirk.

Fuck, how is he allowed this?

This thing, this great thing, both exciting and peaceful, this haven that is her place, their little sacred space, this woman, this woman, how is he allowed near this woman?

He is sure that it is not fair. He does not deserve her, not one cell on his body deserves her, she could do so much better than him.

Well, he thinks. Too bad. He’s not giving her away. As long as she wants him, he’s hers.

“What are you thinking?” She asks, right foot rising and touching his leg, over his jeans, sliding from his knee to his hip.

She grips her own hair while he removes his shirt, eyes trained on him, sucking in a slow, deep breath, letting it out slowly, those eyes roaming, and he feels like the biggest man.

“I’m thinking I’ve missed you.”

“You saw me this morning”, she argues, but he knows her. She wants him to keep talking, so he does.

“You think one hurried cup of coffee and a good morning kiss is enough for me?”

He squeezes the foot still pressed against his leg, bending to press a quick kiss on top of it before starting on his belt, taking his time.

“It isn’t?”

“Nah”. End out of the hook in his left side, sliding to take it from its own loop, finger tracing the edge of the metal buckle before undoing it. And she watched every move. “I need more than ten minutes each morning to get the day going right.”

She smiles, that lower lip trapped between her teeth.

Frank pulls his belt out of the loops of his jeans, throwing it aside towards that chair, wetting his lower lip with his tongue when she looks at his face.

“What do you need more time for?”

“All kinds of good things.”

She watches as he undoes his pants and steps off them, and reaches for him when he bends a knee on the mattress.

He scoots closer and gets a hold of her legs, placing himself between them and tugging her towards him, and she smiles wider, reaching with both hands, now, fingertips running around his stomach, teasing the edge of his underwear, lifting to his chest, trying to grab him by the arms, lazy, teasing, slow.

He stands there on his knees between her legs, letting her look at him, watching her, too.

Frank tugs on her tank top.

“Take this off, please.”

“Why?”

He almost scoffs at her. It’s her go to reaction. Question everything.

“Do as you’re told.”

Eyes on his, she sits up and places a kiss on his stomach before reaching down and pulling her top off.

When she lowers her arms, he reaches for her face and bends to kiss her, guiding her back down, laying on top of her, letting out a groan of satisfaction at the feel of her tongue against his, her chest pressed against his own, skin warm and soft.

Her kisses manage to be sweet and heated at the same time. When he drops his face to her neck, she breathes out and hugs him to her, legs coming up and around him, hands splayed on his back, arching up under him.

He whispers his plans for her in her ear while lowering the cotton shorts from her, along with her underwear. She smiles and moans and breathes, touching him all over, kissing him deep and slow, letting him do as he pleases.

Frank does not deserve Karen. But, if the way she clings to him is any indication, she does not want to let go.

And that is just fine with him. And his ego.


End file.
